​Genes Are Funny Things

​Good morning Cath!

My favourite email morning is when the newsletter comes! I've lived the Cheapskates way of life with the greatest results since I was sixteen, and started saving for my first trip to England. I have MOSTLY been lucky enough to have an exciting (travel/holiday) goal which makes it fun to make every dollar do the work of two, but there have been times - lost jobs, three weddings in sixteen months (!!!!) and even lately, the GFC diminishing our managed super funds capital and income, when it has just been necessary - and easier because it was ingrained.

IF only the television shows would, stop presenting age pensioners as pathetic and miserable, begging for more money (yes, I know many are struggling dreadfully - but we ourselves now get full pension and it is not the amount the station quotes, it is quite a few dollars more). Why not an encouraging presenter (hey, why not YOU!) showing how to manage what money there is better, and enjoying the exercise? Heaven knows we do have the time to do the math, and the cooking, and the shopping. And it is such a charge to achieve the savings - and eat better. We - I'm so lucky to still have my shipboard romance circa 1956 voyage to England - that fare was my best investment ever - keep to a lifetime habit of cooked breakfast (often leftovers pre-planned), sandwich lunch and dessert. As Anne says, its cheaper and healthier - the $2.19 'light" ice cream from Aldi is a must for us. Fortunately we are healthy, but I do think eating well is beneficial. Easy for me to say, I guess, because my goals are easier.

This will make you laugh I think. As I was able to work part time till I was 71 in a job I loved, we are enjoying the very best bargain of a lifetime this last few years. Compare a 20 day holiday to Honolulu by ship from Sydney, plus four days in a lovely hotel in Waikiki - including a hedonistic lifestyle with some of the best beautiful food anyone could want of course on the ship, plus entertainment, plus travel and stops at beautiful Tahitian islands, and airfare back to Sydney - cost $5,700. We do 'splurge' on a window looking out on the ocean or it could have been done for $5,000, to $3,000 for two flights and four nights hotel in Waikiki! Those costs are for two of course, and don't include the odd glass of wine! We even get (though thankfully didn't have to claim anything on it, so don't know if it 'works') free overseas travel insurance on our Commonwealth Bank credit card.

Credit cards work for me, always have. I never pay interest, and never spend without thinking of that bill coming in at the end of the month. If an item is $15.95 - that is what I pay. If I use cash, I pay with a $20 not, and the $4.05 change disappears, if you know what I'm saying.

Thank you for listening to me on my hobby horse! I read an interesting interview with you and so I know you understand about the pension. And read email correspondence. You have replied to mine before, and thank you for those letters.

I wonder if your mother passed on your philosophy to you. Mine did, thankfully. However my sister is not interested in money at all. I think that you have to love money, for what it can do, and how managing it well can enrich your life. Or the reverse. My four daughters did laugh at their childhood memories of the 'frugals' but then remembered the two great cruises they went on - saved from 'housekeeping' and travelling in a six berth cabin. Now in their forties and fifties, three are good budgeters, and the other....... well we won't go there. I have given the grandchildren the 'message' when they were old enough, including a sit down session and their first 'budget book'! The interesting result, now they are in their late teens, is that the three whose mothers are good with money (and who have much more) are excellent, those of the mother who just hates money are following in her footsteps.

Genes are funny things - and oh dear, picking the right partner in life has got to be the best bargain of all.